Conceptualizing Online Social Networking Privacy Concerns

Abstract

The explosive growth of online social networking necessitates a better understanding of privacy in this context to guide system design and policy-making. Drawing on the theory of psychological boundaries and previous literature on information privacy, we extend the extant conceptualization of information privacy by developing a multidimensional privacy construct contextualized to online social networking platforms.

We term this new construct online social networking privacy (OSNP).

The new construct:

(1) contextualizes extant information privacy dimensions to a social networking context;

(2) adds dimensions that tap into privacy control over virtual interactions and over psychological independence, both of which become salient when social interactions (rather than transactions) are the focus of online activities; and

(3) includes privacy concerns with respect to two types of stakeholders (social platform providers and online peers), recognizing online social networks as platforms for mediated social interactions that involve both social platform providers and participating peers.

Further, we develop and empirically validate scales to measure this new construct. The study contributes to the information privacy literature by conceptualizing and developing an privacy scale that reflects the salient privacy concerns of users of online social networking platforms.

Keywords: Privacy, Privacy Concerns, Information Privacy, Online Social Networking, Psychological Boundary, Privacy Controls